


The Day of Truth

by genericfanatic



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-03
Updated: 2016-02-03
Packaged: 2018-05-18 01:24:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5892727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/genericfanatic/pseuds/genericfanatic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the death of Jeremiah Danvers, the Kent family invites his cousin and her family for Christmas. The family, however, is not feeling the holiday spirit. What can Clark do to raise everyone's spirits for the holiday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Day of Truth

            The ride to Kent farms was silent. Kara and Alex sat as far away as they could from one another in the backseat of their small station wagon. Mrs. Danvers played music from the 80’s to try and fill the silence, though it only seemed to emphasize the lack of chatter.

            The front passenger seat, while empty, seemed to fill the space instead.

            Kara hated driving in cars. She would have gotten out and walked, getting there faster than the car could take them. The issue being she’d probably be spotted doing such a feat, and that was the ultimate taboo.

            She was more frustrated than anything else. She had already lost one father. Shouldn’t there have been some sort of limit to personal tragedies? Like, she lost a planet, shouldn’t that mean she could keep new parents?

            Mrs. Danvers was feigning mental stability to the best of her ability. She cried in her room, forgetting or not caring that her Kryptonian daughter could hear her. In the day, she carried on as though nothing had changed, smiling, giving the girls lunch in the mornings as they left for school.

            Alex was more difficult to tell how she was coping, if she was. She didn’t cry, that Kara could tell. She didn’t smile, or talk much at all really. She did her homework and read, unless told to do something else.

            None of them really wanted to leave the house, Kara could tell. None of them particularly felt like celebrating Christmas at all anymore. But when Kal-El…no, Clark. When Clark found out about Mr. Danvers’ death, he insisted that his cousin’s family join his for the holiday.

            “There it is,” Mrs. Danvers said. Kara looked up to the farm. She had been there once when she first arrived on Earth, just for a few days as Clark found a place for her to live. Mr. and Mrs. Kent were a little old at this point to be raising another Kryptonian child.

            Clark was just outside the door to greet them. He had probably heard the car a mile down the road. No one would suspect the hero in blue to be the simple farm hand, wearing a red flannel shirt with rolled up sleeves, heavy duty blue jeans, big square glasses, and a goofy smile.

            Mrs. Danvers got out to greet him, holding the bread she had brought with her. “Hello, Clark,” She said, unsure of how familiar to be with her dead husband’s friend. Luckily, Clark was overly friendly with everyone as he wrapped her in a hug and kissed her cheek.

            Kara could hear him whisper “I’m so sorry for your loss. Jeremiah was a good man.”

            Mrs. Danvers inhaled sharply at that, but kept the smile on her face. “Thank you.”

            Alex and Kara unloaded their suitcases as Mr. and Mrs. Kent came out to greet them. Mrs. Kent quickly swept the bread out of Mrs. Danver’s hands and ushered them all inside. Clark took their luggage, all of it, and brought it up to the guest room.

            The Kent’s carried polite conversation with Mrs. Danvers. They asked the appropriate questions of the teenage girls, how school was going, what was their favorite class, did they have any after school activities, etc. Alex and Kara were perfectly polite.

            The atmosphere of the car followed the Danvers into the house, and the Kent’s didn’t quite know how to handle it, it seemed, other than taking on more than half the conversation themselves.

            Clark talked a lot about his work at the Daily Planet, as well as various Superman escapades. Mrs. Danvers listened respectfully, nodding and giving small laughs in the proper places. Alex and Kara leaned back and tuned them out.

            The conversation carried through dinner. Finally, the Danvers were escorted to their rooms. Mrs. Danvers got the guest room while the girls shared Clark’s room, where he had stuck a second bed. Mrs. Danvers protested at kicking Clark out of his own room, but he insisted he didn’t stay there often enough anyway, so he might as well take the couch.

            Kara stayed awake for a long time. She turned to Alex, but if her foster sister was awake, she showed no signs. Kara shut her eyes. The night of the farm was different than in the suburbs. Still, she heard the faint sobbing coming from the guest room. She wondered if Clark was listening too.

           

            The next morning they awoke to a sharp rap on the door. “Santa came!” Clark said before rushing downstairs.

            Kara and Alex groggily made their way to the living room, where Mrs. Kent was making the adults coffee and the kids hot cocoa, with a little help from Clark and his heat vision. Indeed the base of the tree was covered in presents.

            Clark seemed to light up like the Christmas tree beside him, as did Mr. Kent. “Alright everyone,” he said as Mrs. Danvers came downstairs, take a seat, Clark likes to play Santa.”

            As if to prove the point, Clark put on a Santa hat and began laughing the traditional “Ho Ho Ho!”

            Kara tried smiling at him, but it became awkward and forced. Having come to the planet already a teenager, she never believed in Santa, and never really understood the appeal. Then again a lot of human traditions were weird, but humans seemed to like them. Kryptonians didn’t do gift giving as something for a holiday. Sure, things could be given or passed down, but only when it was something special, not because it was a particular day.

            Trying to elicit some sort of hilarity, Clark flew to the tree to retrieve a present. “Clark! Be careful!” Mrs. Kent protested.

            His foot lightly touched the ornaments on the tree, as he instead flew to Alex. “I’m always careful, Ma.” He placed the present in Alex’s lap.

            As they all watched, she unwrapped it. It was a beautiful set of hoop earrings.

            Now, Kara knew that Alex had only gotten her ears pierced on the demands of her mother, and if she ever wore earrings it was always studs. Still Alex gave the tiniest smile that a human was capable of, turned to the Kent’s and said “Thank you,” as respectfully as she could.

            Next was Kara’s turn, apparently. Clark seemed very excited this time. It was a small, thin box. She opened it, her neck hairs pricking up at the eyes of everyone watching her. She unwrapped it messily, tiny pieces of the paper falling to the floor. She opened up the box and froze.

            Inside was a clear crystal, like quartz, attached to a cord. “It’s a crystal from my fortress,” he said. She knew. She knew looking at it what it was. “I thought if anyone would appreciate it, it would be you.”

            She hardly heard him. Her heart was pounding in her chest, and it didn’t take superhearing to listen to it. She stared at the crystal, feeling like she was being stabbed with it.

            Without thinking, she got up and ran through the door, not even bothering to open it. She ran through the farm until she settled back in the barn. Even in her rage and tears she knew better than to run where someone could see her. Somehow, that knowledge only served to make her feel more trapped.

            She held her arms, sat in the hay and cried. She hadn’t realized she had been holding it in for so long. She wasn’t even completely sure what she was sad about.

She wasn’t surprised to see Clark come up the ladder. He was the one most likely to find her, she supposed. She didn’t want him there, but didn’t want him to leave either. She didn’t know what she wanted which made her all the more confused.

            He stood on the ladder, watching her, figuring out what to say. “I’m sorry,” he said, finally. “I thought you would like it, I hadn’t meant to upset you.”

            Kara didn’t know what to say, so she didn’t say anything, instead trying to get her tears under control.

            Clark came up the rest of the ladder and sat across from her. “I know this hasn’t been easy for you. But you know I’m always here for you, right? We Kryptonians gotta stick together.”

            “No,” she said. Her sadness turned to anger as he tried to cheer her up.

            “No?” Clark asked, confused, “What do you mean—“

            “I mean,” she said, turning to him, her eyes red with tears, “You’re not Kryptonian. Not really. You have the same blood, and super powers. But you don’t remember. You don’t remember ANY of it.”

            Clark looked more shocked and hurt than if she had hit him with kryptonite. Good. She wanted him to hurt like she hurt. Or at least, a part of her did. A more logical part knew it was wrong, but she ignored it.

            “You give me a crystal like its some precious token, something we share. But you don’t know that it’s basically the equivalent of a brick. You don’t know that architects were practically gardeners who grew houses made out of crystals like that, shaping them, and then furnishing them to their will. You never saw the way those houses reflected light off the red sun.”

            She sniffled, but he didn’t interrupt her. “You grew up here. Where the sun is yellow, in a house made out of wood. Your name is _Clark.”_ She said the name as unnaturally as it had sounded to her when he first heard it. “You celebrate CHRISTMAS, all about giving gifts around a dead tree and believing a guy breaks into peoples houses. You have two parents who—who—“

            She began sobbing again, hugging her knees tight. Clark couldn’t hold himself in anymore and wrapped her in a hug. She was stronger than any human around, but still small enough to be enveloped by her cousin. She gripped his flannel shirt, wetting it with her tears.

            He holds her there for a minute until her sobs die down to gentle whimpers. He strokes her hair comfortingly for a second before saying softly, “You’re right, you know?” She doesn’t know how to respond, “I’m…jealous of you sometimes. I never got to meet my birthparents. I’ve learned some things about Krypton since then, but I’ve never seen it. I don’t know many of the cultural traditions.”

            He kissed the top of her head. “Would you tell me about home? Just a little. I mean, I understand if you don’t want to think about it, but,”

            “No,” she said, her tears calming down, and guilt creeping in about what she had said to him, “No, its okay, um. What do you want to know?”

            Clark swallowed. “What were my parents like?”

            Kara smiled, as the memory surfaced. “I only met them a handful of times, to be honest. Our fathers, yours and mine, argued a lot. They were both scientists, and often had some…differences of opinion on how the science should be applied.” Clark chuckled at that. “But your mother…Aunt Lara was always kind to me. She made the best malla, which is like, this sweet bread I guess is the closest thing I can compare it to. She made it every time I came to visit.”

            Clark squeezed her just a little tighter. It seemed to be a comfort for himself. Kara thought back, trying to figure out what else to tell him. She gave a small laugh as a memory flooded back to her, “There was…this HORRIBLE time where Jor-El and Lara came to visit on the Day of Truth. Oh, god, Jor-El and my father must have yelled at each other for hours.”

            Clark pulled away to look into her face. “The Day of Truth?” he asked.

            “Oh, right,” She forgot they didn’t celebrate that here, “It’s to celebrate the anniversary of the death of Val-lor, Krypton’s greatest hero. He was known for never lying, so, on the day of truth, Kryptonians can only tell each other the truth. It’s meant to be a sort of clearing of the air, but it starts more than one brawl.”

            Clark frowns to himself, deep in thought. “I…I think I have an idea.”

            Kara frowned at him in turn, confused. “A—what?”

            Clark smirked at her, “Come with me.” He got up and offered Kara a hand. Curious, Kara took it, and he gently lifted her up and carried her down to the floor. She wondered for a brief moment if she’d be able to fly someday.

            The to aliens walked back into the house, Clark keeping a grip on Kara’s shoulder. Inside, Mrs. Danvers had her head in her hands, Alex with her arms crossed and the Kent’s desperately trying to cheer the two of them up.

            They looked up to see Clark and Kara enter, Clark reassuringly smiling at them and holding up his hand to stop any of them from saying anything to Kara, whom he must know was staring at the hole she had left in the door someone had covered up. “Ma? Pa? I’ve got a sort of strange suggestion.

            Mr. and Mrs. Kent exchange a worried glance, “What is it, son?” Mr. Kent said.

            “You know I love Christmas, it’s one of my favorite holidays. But we celebrate it every year, and, well, I thought just this once we could put it on hold for just a little bit to celebrate a Kryptonian holiday.”

            Kara blinked in surprise, and she knew she wasn’t the only one. “Kara here was just telling me about a holiday called the ‘Day of Truth,’ where Kryptonians tell each other the absolute truth for one day.”

            Ma and Pa Kent blinked, but turned to Mrs. Danvers to see what she thought, “Um, well,” she said, trying to be polite, “That sounds very interesting, Clark, but—“

            “I’ll start.” Clark said. “Eliza, I know you don’t want to tell the truth because you’re scared of being seen as impolite, especially around me and my family, or worse yet, being seen as weak or some other ridiculous thing by your daughters. But seeing as Truth is one of the things I stand for, I consider it to be more important than feigning normalcy, which we can all tell is what you’re doing, by the way.”

            “Clark!” Mrs. Kent said. Mrs. Danvers was taken aback to say the least.

            “I’m sorry, Ma.” Clark said, bowing his head, “I am truly sorry if my words are hurtful, but I think they need to be said.” He turned smiling down to his cousin, “Kara here has just shown me how saying something truthful, if hurtful, can help people to open up. And I think the three of you especially have been closed off for too long.”

            Mrs. Danvers stared at Clark for a long moment. Finally, she took a deep breath and said, “I don’t know how.” She covered her mouth as though she said something awful, but Clark gave her a reassuring nod to continue. “I don’t know what to do without Jeremiah. I mean, I know how to function, he’s been gone for months because of work. But I don’t know…” tears sprang to her eyes, “I don’t know what to do. It feels like the world should stop or something. Just stop turning because how can the earth go on without him?”

            She started sobbing in full now, covering her face and unable to speak. Mrs. Kent, who was incapable of not comforting someone in pain, came to her and provided a half hug and tissues.

            Mrs. Danvers blew her nose. “I just…I just wanted my girls to be happy…” she cried out.

            Clark gave her a smile, “I know, Eliza. I have never had a loss like that, so I can’t relate, but…” he let his mother comfort her as she cried, turning his attention to the youngest human.

            Alex’s frown had deepened and her arms crossed tighter as her mother spoke. “Alex?” Clark asked, “Do you have something to say?” Alex glared at him, and shook her head. “Nothing?”

            “Here’s a truth,” she said finally, “This is stupid.”

            Mrs. Danvers looked up at that, but didn’t interrupt her. No one did, and this seemed to make her more angry. “Talking about our true ‘feelings’ isn’t going to fix anything! Crying about it isn’t going to FIX anything!”

            Clark spoke in a low tone, “What will?”

            Alex’s eye bulged and it looked like the teenage girl was about to attack the full grown superhero. “What would fix this you mean?” She stood up, “HOW ABOUT HAVING MY _FATHER_ BACK? You—YOU—It’s not FAIR. HE LEFT and you can’t tell me it didn’t have SOMETHING to do with the two of YOU!” She pointed at the Kryptonians. “He DIED, he’s never coming BACK, because he was associated with YOU. YOU made him take Kara in! And now he’s GONE. There is no FIXING THIS.” Now tears were streaming down her eyes as well.

            No one else knew what to say. Kara muttered something only Clark’s superhearing could pick up. He nudged her, and nodded, encouraging her to speak up. “It’s not…it’s not our fault.” She repeated. She looked up more determined into her sister’s eyes. “You’re looking for someone to blame and there is no one. There’s no single person responsible for the destruction of krypton, and none of us, at least, are responsible for—for—“ she swallowed, “For OUR dad’s death.”

            Alex frowned, “You didn’t—you didn’t know him for more than a couple of years. You—“

            “He was kind to me, he took me in when I had nothing left.” She looked between Alex and Mrs. Danvers, tears once again falling down her face. “You all did. You…you made me happy again. And if I can be happy after losing my whole world, we can…we will be happy again. Maybe not now. Maybe not for a while. But we will.”

            “How?” Alex asked.

            Kara bit her lip, facing the ground. Clark took her hand and walked her over to Mrs. Danvers, his mother, and Alex, gathering all three women into a giant hug. “By being honest with each other. And working together as a family.”

            Mr. Kent watched them all, Clark holding them together, the Danver’s with tearstained faces, and his wife smiling sweetly. “Aw, I should take a picture.”

            “Jonathan, you get into this family hug right now.” Mrs. Kent said.

            Mr. Kent obeyed, and the Kent/Danvers family stayed there for a few minutes, minorly uncomfortable, but gaining strength from one another.


End file.
